


saturday, april

by spacepuck



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, in which the boys are old and living together, sort of??? lets roll with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 02:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9946064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacepuck/pseuds/spacepuck
Summary: In which John wakes up to a clean apartment on a chilly day in April, possibly forgetting something important.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is a bday gift for [sam](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Exorciststuck/pseuds/Exorciststuck)!! it's much longer than i anticipated but i hope you enjoy @_@
> 
> mood music: [flying saucer blues](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rep6Rjqx64U)
> 
> hmu at spacepuck.tumblr.com

You notice the scent of fresh-vacuumed carpet when you pad out of your bedroom at 11:47am. 

Which is to say, you can smell the tinge of burning coming from the hallway’s tiny closet as you pass it. You don’t have to look inside to know that the vacuum (borrowed indefinitely from the remains of your father’s storage unit, which you have not paid for in two months at no one’s surprise or horror) is still struggling to cool down from its rare workout. 

You would say it’s hard work battling against a dinged carpet stained with a history of stale Cheeto dust and the mysteries of past tenants dating back to 1982, but honestly, you wouldn’t know. Inhaling crumbs off the floor sober is not your specialty. It’s also not your job. 

Beneath the smell of the overworked machine, you can still smell the musk of menthols—yours alone, as far you know, but you don’t doubt that the smell has lingered since long before you were born—and as you stand numb in the half-empty space of the living room, you can at least tell yourself that the scent makes you happy. 

You know it doesn’t make him happy, and for good reason, but he’s given up on trying to get rid of it.

You stare at the sunlight hitting the dust floating above the couch before turning away.

When you step into the kitchen, you’re quick to grab the box of Fruit Rings off the counter, rattling the box to fill up the quiet of the apartment. April has failed you in the sense that it’s still lingering in the low forties, confining you to pajama pants and the ever-fashionable long sleeve look of goosebumps trailing up your arms and making the dark hairs pin-straight. You peer over your glasses to squint at the silent air conditioner. 

You used to hate when it rattled. Now you look forward to sixty-degree afternoons, secretly enamored with the sound that your housemate had recorded and re-recorded and transformed into something audibly edible. It was good. It wasn’t as pretentious or lame as you expected. 

He only let you hear the song a few times before confining it to the hefty “fix this shit” folder on his laptop, but it made you wish you were good at art. Remembering it, and the numerous other clips haphazardly stored away on his disk and in his head, makes you feel somewhat guilty. You haven’t played the piano in years. 

You remember calling the song shit and immediately wishing you could get a re-do. He just laughed it off, but you know better. 

You pour the Fruit Rings and turn the box away from you, just so the ugly crocodile can stop giving you that patronizing smile. 

The dust still dances slowly in the living room, suspended over the suspiciously organized coffee table. You had noticed the folded note sitting on the table when you had first woken up, and you know it’s from Dave, and you know that he knows you’ll put off reading it, so instead you stare at it from the small kitchen island, hunched over your generic sugar cereal. 

On the fifth spoonful in mid-transit to your mouth, you realize that Dave didn’t even bother to wake you up this morning. 

You mean, obviously he didn’t wake you up—you were very aware that he wasn’t around when you first cracked your eyes open, and you were aware of the lingering remnants of his earlier presence when you rolled out of bed. Yesterday’s boxers not quite making it to the hamper, a glass half-filled with juice still sitting on the table beside his bed. The scene was familiar, but usually you were given at least a lame punch to the shoulder and an obnoxious kiss to the cheek to get you started. 

This morning, you woke with a start from a dream you already can’t remember.

You scrub your eyes tiredly with your forefinger and thumb. 

It doesn’t even matter. You don’t have classes, you don’t have work. But he had gotten into the habit of waking you up before he left for work on Saturdays, and the routine made you feel…normal, maybe. 

There’s a distinct lack of garbage-smell when you drop the half-finished bowl of cereal in the sink. The colored oat rings are bloated with milk; they’ll probably disintegrate by the time you force yourself to clean the dishes. 

(That’s another thing—the sink is uncharacteristically empty. You wonder if he was running late this morning and just didn’t have time to eat breakfast.)

You take your time, but eventually you let yourself sink into the couch, ugly and scratchy and more gray than the blue it probably was when your grandmother bought it in 1945. But you let the hard button in the cushion push against your spine as you sit back and stare at the note. 

It’s not inconspicuous at all, and you wonder why he even bothered folding it. He’s the only other person in the house, aside from what you think is a ghost and what he (wrongly) thinks is just the “shitty plumbing because this god damn district hasn’t been fondled by the government in probably half a century”, and his tell-all red ink is bleeding through the paper. 

You wonder why he didn’t just text you like usual. You check your phone and peer at the unopened snaps from Rose and Jade, and you almost try to will one from the Snapchat prostitute himself by squinting at his decade-and-a-half-old handle. 

But it never arrives, so instead you’re stuck in the silence of your apartment with the scratchy couch, the smell of burnt rug, and this dumb note that you almost don’t want to open to spite him and this wave of strangeness. 

…But you will open it, because your curiosity is stronger than your perseverance, so you reach over to grasp it between your fingers. You notice that he dumped the ashes from your ashtray, but this isn’t out of the ordinary. If anything, you feel a little guilty for forgetting to dump it yourself, if only because you know how much he hates it.

He did move your pack of Spirits, though, in his relentless game of hide-and-seek. You’ll find them later. 

You kick your feet up onto the table and open the note.

john

first of all i will be personally offended if you read this note before 12pm—no fuckin joke i will be able to feel your outpouring energy, as you just fuckin pop this thing right open and bask in the sentimentality of me writing a handwritten note, from behind my earned and rightful throne behind my target register fifteen minutes away and if i get those vibes at even like 11:59 i will flip my lid 

anyways dont freak i just thought it would be a fun prank

just kidding—its not a prank dunno why i wrote that. just dont fuck up the house okay?? i put a lot of sweat and blood into making this shit look pristine 

also remember to put on real clothes today man

-ds

You roll your eyes real hard at that last part. You even squirm into the couch deeper for added effect, hoping he gets the vibe off _that_. 

Tossing the note aside, you switch on the TV and don’t bother to change the channel. 

\--

By the time you hear Dave unlocking the door some hours later, you’ve actually managed to slip into jeans and a not-gross shirt. You found your Spirits in the process—lamely hidden in his half of the bathroom, meaning he has no idea that you’ve been stealing his toothpaste for the past week—but you’ve otherwise remained in the you-shaped crevice on the couch for the past four hours watching Guy Fieri slurp grease. 

You watch him nudge the door closed with his foot, his hands preoccupied with a small bundle of groceries. 

“Need help?” you offer. He shakes his head, dropping the bags onto the counter outside of your vision. 

“Nah, you just chill.”

You squirm. You sit up straighter and hang an arm over the back of the couch, watching his back as he tosses things into the cabinets. 

“How was work?”

“Oh, you know, the usual—creepy grandmas trying to slip me their number, some kid eating dog food in the pet aisle, the weird red orb in the parking lot staring me down through the entrance—I swear to god those things are possessed, I feel like I’m about to get mind controlled every time I look at one—”

“You mean like, there are bodies inside the orbs?”

He pauses for a second, pushing his shades into his hair. “You know what? Probably, man. I really wouldn’t put it past higher management to root through a morgue with a cement truck and red paint in tow.”

“Maybe that’s how they get people to stay there for so long.” You twist yourself until you’re on your knees, belly to the couch’s back. “Maybe the red orb outside the entrance is like, mind controlling you so you’ll work overtime.”

“I ain’t even working overtime, dude, those are just my hours.” 

You roll your eyes, and he turns to you, leaning his elbows on the small island to look at you back. 

“Are you trying to say that you miss me?” he asks, and you scoff as his lips twitch into a shitty smirk. 

“No, by all means, let the orb suck your soul into one of its siblings.” 

He breathes a short laugh. He rounds the island to come to you, hopping the back of the couch to settle in his own crevice. 

“Holy shit, how long have you been watching this jackass gorge himself?”

You turn to sit normally again, waving him off. 

“You say that like you don’t watch the reruns at three am. I’ve seen you.” 

“Didn’t answer my question.” 

He doesn’t reach for the remote, though. You watch him remove his red polo and toss it beside the coffee table before slipping his shades back over his eyes. Wiggling your toes, you nudge his stomach with your foot. 

“You look like an asshole.”

He swats your foot away, saying, “And you look like someone who’s done jack shit today. Please tell me you’ve done something other than watching this dude eat.”

You shrug. “I got dressed? Found these—” You reach into your pocket and pull out the carton of cigarettes, waving them a little before tossing them onto the coffee table. “—and, you know. Sat here, waiting for my knight in shining armor to keep me company after he didn’t wake me up this morning.”

He clicks his tongue softly. As he repositions himself, he drapes an arm behind your shoulders. He doesn’t quite touch you, but you can feel his fingertips ghosting above your shoulder. 

“Figured you could get some beauty sleep. Did you talk to Rose or Jade yet?”

At that, you look at him, raising a brow. “Uh, no. I mean, they’ve been sending me snaps, but I haven’t opened them yet—why?”

“No reason, just figured they’d be hitting you up.”

“I mean, they’re kind of in different time zones, so, you know.”

He hums. You watch as he not-so-discreetly pulls out his phone from his khaki trousers, and then you look back at the television. 

“What’s the occasion?” you ask. When he looks up, you gesture to the living room. 

“Oh.” He shrugs, looking back down at his phone and typing rapidly with his thumb. “Dude’s gotta clean up sometimes, you know? Adult responsibility and all the bullshit.”

You can’t help but snort. “Bullshit is right. You don’t clean up unless the landlord’s making a visit.” You pause, sitting up straighter. “Oh, shit, Nancy’s not coming over, is she?” 

“Nah, nah, it’s not for her.” You feel his hand fall onto your shoulder, and you relax under it. “But I may or may not have been bribed by a certain other that if the place wasn’t clean, she would be a no-show.”

“What?” 

“You know, like, she just won’t show up, even though she’s a goddamn hypocrite for saying so—she’s not exactly the pinnacle of spotlessness, so I don’t really know _what_ the deal is—”

You twist in your spot to look at him. He’s still looking down at his phone, rambling verbally and, it looks like, textually, at the same time. You would call it a cool party trick if it weren’t just ridiculous.

“Dave, who are you even talking about?”

He finishes what’s probably a long-winded and unnecessary text before settling back more comfortably in his spot. With his hand still on your shoulder, he jostles you gently. 

“Jesus, John, do you have a calendar? Do you need to get your eyes checked again?”

You squint at him. “My eyes are unfortunately fine.”

“Calm your virgin eyes, I’ll put a shirt on in a sec. Do you know what day it is?”

“Saturday, duh.”

He sighs, but you can see a smile trying to work its way onto his mouth. “Work with me here, man. I meant the date.”

You open your mouth to respond—but nothing comes out. Nothing but a dumb, short, “Uh.”

He nudges your knee with his, nodding to the phone sitting idle in your lap. “Well, luckily, your phone does this high-tech thing where it tells you the date on command. Like it’s its job or something—not like it’s main thing but like, a lil’ side thing it does to get some extra cash on the weekends, that sorta gig.” 

You feel the tips of your ears burn as you fumble with your phone to squint at the date against the backlight. You reach up to scratch the stubble under your jaw. 

April, obviously. April—

“Oh, my god.”

You drop your phone in your lap, somewhat out of frustration with yourself but mostly out of disbelief. 

Dave laughs beside you, jostling your shoulder again. 

“Oh my god,” he breathes, “did you _actually_ forget it’s your birthday or are you fucking with me?”

“No, I—” You thread a hand through your hair, feeling the heat radiating from your cheeks. “I guess I just didn’t think about it.”

Didn’t think about it? Who forgets their own _birthday?_

“No shit?” he asks. But he doesn’t give you time to respond. “Well, guess you’re in for more of a surprise than I thought.”

“Huh?” 

“Okay, Egbert, I know this isn’t really your shtick, but I’m gonna ask you to put the pieces together.” 

He holds a hand out, ticking each point off with a raised finger.

“One, it’s your birthday, right?”

“Uh, yeah. Apparently.”

“Right. Two, I cleaned up the apartment for your birthday, but I’ve never cleaned up this place for your birthday before, because I know you don’t really give a shit about that.”

You try to think back—you’ve only lived in the apartment with him for four years, but each past birthday is a blurry memory. Probably for good reason, and probably for the best.

So you say, “Yeah, I mean, I don’t think you have.”

“Trust me, I haven’t. Third, a certain someone who isn’t our landlord told me that if the apartment wasn’t spick an’ span, she wouldn’t show up, and for some reason, I found that threatening enough to actually clean.”

You blink at him. “Okay?”

He shakes his hand, emphasizing his three raised fingers. 

“Think, John—use that brain of yours to put the pieces together.”

You feel your brows furrow. Neither of you had ever really cleaned the place up, not like this, for anyone except the landlord. You had at times cleaned out of guilt on days where your spirituality felt high and your dad’s looming presence even higher, but that hadn’t happened in a long time. 

You remember your dad being somewhat particular about how the house looked when guests came over. You remember being young and learning not to tell him that you had friends coming over until they were standing in the doorway. You would watch his face fall out of the corner of your eye as he realized he could do nothing but bear with the fact that he hadn’t had ample time to clean for the presence of your friends who, at the time, couldn’t really care less. 

As you got older, and as his presence drifted farther, you felt the urge to clean up for company at times. But company was few and far between these days. The last time you really had company was for your nineteenth birthday, when you were still in the process of leaving, and foreclosing, your childhood home back in Maple Valley.

You remember Rose asked you, in her roundabout way, to at least vacuum the carpet for when she and Jade arrived. And you did, because you knew that if they flew across the country and there were still dust bunnies and old M&Ms roaming the house, your dad would come back to haunt you for the rest of your days. 

You remember her smiling and, much later, complimenting you on your hosting skills. She never mentioned the carpet. Jade, on the other hand, ate an M&M she found under the couch while you were all watching _Aliens_.

You look down at your phone at the unopened messages. 

“Oh my god, are Rose and Jade coming?” you finally ask, quickly sitting straight as you raise your eyes to meet his.

Dave smiles boldly, closing his hand to a fist in a small cheer. “Ding ding ding, we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen.” He claps you on the back of your shoulder with his other hand. “Thank god, I thought I was going to really have to spell it out for you.”

“Like, they’re really coming?” You turn yourself to face him entirely. “When? Are they already flying over? Are they getting a cab here? Are we picking them up? Oh my god, dude, I didn’t even really shower, I just—”

“A-a-alright, slow your roll. Their flight’s not coming for like, another hour.” He repositions himself to mirror you, clasping your shoulders. “’Sides, I doubt they’ll care that your hair is a _little_ greasy.”

You raise your hands to cover your face. “Ohhh my god,” you groan, muffled by your palms. 

“Trust me, they’ll be cool with it.”

“I haven’t seen them in like, five years, Dave!” you say, lowering your hands. “God, I can’t even remember if they _told me_ they would be coming.”

“They didn’t—it was, uh.” 

He laughs a little sheepishly, squeezing one of your shoulders. 

“We were kind of banking on you forgetting. Like, not forgetting this bad, but we wanted it to be a surprise anyway.”

You stare at him. You look down at your hands, and then to the table, the carpet. Guy Fieri mumbles from the television.

“I—I can’t believe I forgot. And you planned all this just for—”

“For you? Hell yeah, ‘course I did. Look, I know your past few birthdays have been real ragers, you know, the two of us just getting wasted playing Wii Sports or whatever, but I figured it was time to, y’know.” 

He shrugs, now looking somewhat sheepish. 

“It’s a weekend this time around, so I asked the girls if they could come up and they got hyped. They miss you a lot, and I know you’ve been dying to see them.”

You nod, swallowing. “Yeah, I have. Jesus, Dave, I…Thank you.”

He squeezes your shoulders, but you lean forward, hugging him. You feel his hands slide over your shoulders to squeeze you back.

“No prob, Egbert. I just figured it was about time that we all got together again.”

You’re glad he can’t see your face; you calm the waver building in your throat and cover it with a laugh.

“Jesus, you’re sentimental today.”

“What can I say? I’m an emotional son of a bitch.”

You smile against his shoulder, squeezing him. 

After a moment, he pats the spot between your shoulder blades. As he pulls away, you deftly reach a finger up to wipe the wetness from your eyes (spring allergies, obviously!), but you know that you didn’t evade him. 

Still, he doesn’t say anything about it. He pecks your cheek before standing up, stretching and popping his joints. He kicks up his shirt into his hand. 

“But don’t thank me yet, dude. There’s a lot more comin’ at ya.” 

He reaches a hand out to you, and you take it. He grins down at you as he helps get you to your feet.

“Gotta get the birthday boy prepped for his big twenty-four.”

You smile—much wider than you’ve felt in a while—and laugh. “Twenty-four’s not even a big deal. Who cares about being twenty-four?”

“No one, but we care about you, so age is really just a number here.”

Still grasping your hand, he leads you away from the couch, away from Guy Fieri, and in front of the hall closet, he kisses the corner of your lips. He mirrors your smile, which you have yet to quiet. 

“Let’s get ready,” he mutters.

You nod, and he squeezes your hand before letting go, disappearing into the bedroom. You follow him, watching as he changes out of his uniform from the doorway, and find yourself still smiling. 

And on this day in April, chilly and otherwise much the same, you feel eternally grateful.


End file.
